Granada is the oldest colonial city in America, and a drawcard of Nicaragua. This small city was my first stop after a long 30 hour bus journey from Panama City. Church and Chocolate DayNot a national holiday, but rather it sums up perfectly my first day in Granada. When I had checked into my hostel I was given a map and told about the five churches I had to visit. Then I was told about the chocolate cafe/museum at the end of the street and the $6 all you can eat buffet breakfast. While that was expensive by Nica standards, the staff there made me get my monies worth. I asked for eggs then they proceeded to tell me I also needed french toast and chocolate and banana crepes. This was before I went to the buffet table, which had traditional NIca food and fruit and granola. Heaven. Later I rolled out the door to find the churches, not before signing up for the chocolate making course in the afternoon where we would make Mayan, Aztec and European hot chocolate drinks and our own chocolate bar. All from scratch from cacao beans.

Cathedral of Granada

Iglesia Guadeloupe

Convento San Francisco

La Merced

Cathedral of Granada from La Merced

On the central plaza

Streets of Granada

Xaleva

Up the bell tower of La Merced

Mombacho Volcano from La Merced

Making chocolate from cacao beans at the Chocolate Musuem

Chocolate bar, done!

Mombacho, Masaya, Catarina and Laguna de ApoyoThere is a lot to do around Granada and one day I chose to take a tour up to the top of Mombacho, one of the volcanos you can see from the city. Unfortunately, although it was a hot sunny day down in the city, up top in the clouds it was cold and rainy and we couldn't see a thing. I thought my enjoyment of the tour could be redeemed by a sighting of a sloth but alas, there was too much wind for the little dudes to be up in the trees and we didn't see any. My disappointment in Mombacho was completely forgotten the next day when I went to Masaya Volcano. A friend had told me that I could talk a taxi driver into being my tour guide for the day, taking me from the famous Masaya markets up to the volcano, then to Catarina for an amazing view over Laguna de Apoyo, Nicaragua's cleanest body of water, before driving me back to Granada. This was the best $35 spent and because Erick the taxi driver didn't speak English my tour came with free Spanish practice.

Chicken buses of Central America. With 50 seats, the world record is 208 people in a bus... Very entertaining.

Masaya Market

Volcan Masaya

Volcan Momotombo, in the background

Masaya crater

Santiago crater

Momotombo is by Managua

I would advise not wearing jandels up here.....

Mombacho from Catarina

Laguna de Apoyo from Catarina

The next day, I joined Shea and Steve, two Canadians I had met earlier in the week, for a day sunbathing and swimming on the shore of Laguna de Apoyo. This was my last full day in Granada and I was pretty content with my five days there.